Keywords: Barack Obama, election 08, hoaxes

Deceptive practices are almost synonymous with election campaigns, but this historic presidential election drew in more hoaxes, jokes and other election blunders than ever before. The target: young, new voters and voters from traditionally underrepresented communities. But the hoaxes failed.

"We can't wake up [Nov. 5] and the only thing on our minds as Americans is who won or who lost," says Barbara Arnwine, executive director for the Lawyers' Committee on behalf of Election Protection, the nation's largest nonpartisan voter-rights coalition. "The question must be in our minds: 'What about the thousands of voters who wanted to vote and were not allowed to vote? Who wanted to vote and were wrongfully denied to vote?' We know we can make our system fail-safe and keep voters and votes from being derailed by partisan operatives, overzealous officials and bureaucratic snafus."

President-elect Barack Obama inspired many young voters in a way no other presidential candidate ever has. Unless you were living under a rock for the past 22 months, it was no secret that voter registration within the demographic of 18- to 29-year-olds rose drastically. As a direct result, this group became a target for fraudulent attempts at directing them away from the polls on Nov. 4. Colleges and universities were especially vulnerable--especially in Virginia and Pennsylvania.

"The number of reports where students are having a hard time casting ballots today are coming in mostly from Pennsylvania and Virginia," says Heather Smith, executive director of Rock the Vote. "It's in Virginia where we're actually seeing an attempt to keep students from casting a ballot. In Radford, [Va.], the registrar was telling students that if they registered with a P.O. box instead of their dorm name, their registration would not count. In Pennsylvania, the reports have been of long lines."

In addition, students were targeted through text messaging and social-networking sites such as Facebook and MySpace.

"Students are getting text messages that say 'Due to long lines today, all Obama voters are asked to vote on Wednesday. Thank you for your cooperation,'" Smith says. "There was also someone that hacked into the George Mason University e-mail system and sent an e-mail indicating that voters should vote on Wednesday."

"On the issue of voter intimidation and deceptive practices, what we're seeing this time is predatory, deceptive practices based on the election problems," Arwine says.

"They're using the systematic failures to justify these deceptive practices, which makes them even more realistic-sounding to voters."

Traditionally underrepresented groups were also targeted with deceptive flyers and robo calls stating that Republicans vote on Tuesday and Democrats vote on Wednesday, as well as other fraudulent messages.

"I want to be very clear that in Virginia, Louisiana and Florida, where we've seen some of these robo calls and flyers, they really have been targeted at African-American neighborhoods and some at Latino neighborhoods," Arwine says.

Other fraudulent messages included indications that if you had unpaid parking tickets, you'd be arrested at the polls and would not be able to vote.

"The difference is in the scale between 2004 and 2006 and now in 2008 that's most dramatic," says Jonah Goldman, director of the national campaign for fair elections at the Lawyers' Committee for Civil Rights. "The biggest problem is while they continue to be targeted at minority communities, they're more and more targeted at this new generation of voters. It's understandable that if you're going to do something as insidious as this, you're going to those who are less prepared because they're more infrequent voters or they're new to the process."